From where I sit on
a bench the seaside graveyard climbs a gentle hill. The graves, headstones, crosses, bouquets of flowers fresh
or wilted, have a calming quality. The silence of underground folk
makes them seem wiser than they were in life. They have acquired
gravitas, of course.
All of them, however wise or
foolish they once were, took some sort of knowledge to the grave, took life
experience. If you could gather all the knowledge and memory lying
silent and hidden here – cryptic in the crypts – how bulky would your treasure trove be? How would we measure the
weight of it?
The
birds are hushed and even the trees stand motionless for a windless
moment. Wisdom gathers just out of reach, below ground, an
existential state away. I chat with the dead.
I
knew some of the people buried here, before they arrived at this
final place. As a Memoirs Coach I helped them write their life
stories. I did unofficial surveys of their beliefs (as I still do of
their survivors' beliefs). What is the secret of your longevity, I
would ask clients in their 90s? How do you stay young and active?
“Don't
drive. I walk everywhere.”
“Exercise
kills. Never run or do aerobics. I drive (or better yet, get driven)
everywhere – I relax, I smell the roses.”
“Play
bridge, it keeps the mind alive.”
“Never
play bridge, it's an old folks game.”
Maybe
it's a matter of diet, I wonder aloud when I'm chatting with these
wise elders.
“It
is indeed: eat protein. Lots of meat.”
“It
is indeed: never eat meat! I'm a vegetarian.”
“Oils.
Olive, sesame, coconut, grape-seed ... I'd be dead without oil.”
You'd
be dead without food, I point out. It doesn't seem to matter which
kind we eat.
“That's
because we don't live by bread alone. (By the way, don't eat bread,
carbohydrates kill.) Try prayer.”
“Meditation.”
“Friends
and family.”
“Solitude.”
“Knowledge.”
“Innocence.”
“Duty.”
“Wealth.”
“Freedom
from possessions.”
“Doing
what's right.”
“Doing
what you want.”
“Laughter.”
Yes,
I reply, you're right.
Afterwards, my memoir clients drift off to their own lives and purposes, to solitude or
family, bread or no-bread, walking, driving, roses, bridge ...
leaving me none the wiser. Now I sit in the cemetery where the wise
lie silent. So many purposes they too had, back then in Life.
Purpose
itself keeps us getting up in the morning. I noticed that memoirists who
had proclaimed purposes that made them unhappy were tense and tight. Those who were pleased with choices
freely made seemed fortified, balanced, calm. Whoever is pleased is
healthy. People with a sense of humour live on after death: I
hear them chuckling down there below ground. There's levity inside
those heavy coffins. Why not? Who said the afterlife would be
rational?
I
am pleased to sit in the sun in a park-like cemetery, viewing the natural world, living off-line. For this, my "platform" is my bench, from which I survey the beach and a bit of
ocean to my left, and the grassy expanse of the graveyard to my
right. Video sites (“I see” in Latin) in fact provide no vista. Cyber-life has no physicality, no
flesh, no touch or scent. Virtual isn't real.
The
underground folk are real, and I hear their murmurs. Their city-state is
stable, their country will last forever. They have time to be wise,
now.
I
turn to the seaside view on my left. A reviving breeze is coming off
the ocean, its salty tang just noticeable up here on my bluff. The
sea heaves gently. The life below the surface is as mysterious as
that in the soil around the graves beside me. There are worms and
micro-organisms in sea as in soil. The ocean floor crawls with them.
Crustaceans hunt them. Fish slip through underwater forests of weed,
nosing the swaying curtains apart in a silent search for food. Above,
kelp forests bloom. A few otters and seals break the surface, calmly
pursuing their otter-pleasures, seal-purposes, oblivious to us, our
graves, lost loved ones, fears, plagues and sudden prohibitions.
